Harden–Eulenburg affair

The Harden–Eulenburg affair, often simply Eulenburg affair, was the controversy surrounding a series of courts-martial and five civil trials regarding accusations of homosexual conduct, and accompanying libel trials, among prominent members of Kaiser Wilhelm II's cabinet and entourage during 1907–1909.

The affair centred on journalist Maximilian Harden's accusations of homosexual conduct between Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg-Hertefeld, and General Kuno, Graf von Moltke. Accusations and counter-accusations quickly multiplied, and the phrase "Liebenberg Round Table" came to be used for the homosexual circle around the Kaiser.

The affair received wide publicity and is often considered the biggest domestic scandal of the German Second Empire. It led to one of the first major public discussions of homosexuality in Germany, comparable to the trial of Oscar Wilde in the United Kingdom.

The incident which provoked the affair followed on the heels of a public relations gaffe by Wilhelm II. Briefly, in November 1908, Wilhelm II began a vacation at an aristocrat's estate in the Black Forest. One evening after dinner, chief of the Military Secretariat Dietrich von Hülsen-Haeseler was performing a pas seul dressed in a woman's ballet tutu when his heart failed and he died. Ottokar von Czernin, also in attendance, remarked, "In Wilhelm II, I saw a man who, for the first time in his life, with horror-stricken eyes, looked upon the world as it really was." Despite the Emperor's fears, the incident, with its implications of homosexuality at high levels, seemed successfully hushed up.

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